BALTIMORE — Amara Majeed founded a website called “The Hijab Project,” aimed at combating discrimination against Muslim girls and women who wear head-scarves in public. She self-published a book of short biographies of 17 peace-loving, law-abiding Muslims from around the world. She provides online commentary for CNN and, starting earlier in February, for the Huffington Post.

DALLAS — When Susie Phillips wakes at 5:30 a.m., before the sun rises, before cars zoom down the street bearing the bleary-eyed to work, before children stomp down the sidewalk on their way to school, it isn’t drudgery.

One of Grant Wood’s earliest paintings is of a pair of old shoes, and it hangs in the art museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Wood grew up. Here’s a different kind of still life, in words, from Jim Daniels, who lives in Pittsburgh. The shoes we put on our feet gradually become like the person wearing them.